How much 308 should I buy for my first bolt action rifle before start reloading it?

If you can hold your horses, Prophet River Firearms usually does no tax and free shipping for Fathers-day.

I think I blew $800 or so on brass... last time :)

Cheers,
 
There is a guy selling RWS brass for a good price on the EE board. I got a couple hundred, excellent brass, and he is a stand up guy to deal with. I just full length resized and went to town.
 
adrenaline681 said:
Thanks everyone for the advice, i might follow it and just start reloading.

Im thinking about getting:

Lapua .308 Win. 200 Cases Update: Probably 200 Winchester cases instead since im not super worried about max accuracy right now.
Hornady 308 150gr bullets
CCI large rifle primers #200
IMR 4895
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Just sort your winchester brass. After all there are world records set with winchester 270wsm brass that has been sorted.
 
nomad 68 said:
I'd break it in with a box or two of factory just to see it's potential and then I'd buy brass, components and start reloading for it.
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Ummmmmmmmmm OK. Why???

Most cases need to be fire formed to the individual rifle they will be used in. If the OP uses the factory loads to get fire formed brass it will save him the cost of components to do so. Shooting oatmeal etc just doesn't do it properly and IMHO is a waste of time and good oatmeal.

If the OP is shooting a semi auto rifle or a rifle with a very tight custom chamber then he might have to full length resize his cases.

If he is shooting a bolt action rifle, his brass will last much longer before needing to be reannealed if he only neck sizes or even partially neck sizes.

Some rifles shoot off the shelf factory rounds very well. Some of the new offerings are as good as many hand loaders can make or even better. That's when the shooter has to decide if it's worthwhile to even bother to hand load. If he's only shooting a couple of boxes per year???? Why bother???
 
Get Lapua brass. It lasts so long that it's cheaper in the long run. I'm running Federal brass in both 308 and 300 WM only because I got a huge amount for free. The 300 WM brass has loose primer pockets after being fired 3-4 times. The 308 I don't run max loads so it lasts a bit longer. When it comes time for new brass I'll get 308 Lapua and 300WM Nosler. (Lapua doesn't make belted magnum brass.)
 
buy a box of FGMM and i'd pick up some good reloading brass such as Lapua or Peterson brass. The Peterson brass is $38 for 50, comes with a nice little bullet box you can use and in my experience was really good brass.
 
I have had issues resizing that brass for one of my rifles it just doesn't want to bump the shoulder back far enough most times and running it through my die thats already set up for most brass (remington, S&W, and Federal all size to the same headspace) but the Hirtenberger ammo sizes .003-.004 longer headspacing. Using it in my Savage model 99 with die set to max bump sometimes the brass chambers sometimes it doesn't. I don't really want to modify my shell holders. Suppose I could just anneal before sizing and that would work for sure but inconsistent headspacing happens. Also the brass was originally shot in a different rifle than mine so i'm just resizing it.
 
I should have asked this a while ago I guess.. I just deprimed 1460 cases this weekend, and have another 1000 or so to shoot.... guess I never need to buy more .308 ever lol! But I don't have any reloading gear... so thats winter I guess. but to be fair 100 isn't enough, I shoot about 100+ a day out. have a few hundred .338 lapua as well..
 
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